Every day of the pandemic in all 34 Ontario health units
The Star’s day-by-day record of the pandemic in Ontario — seen here as the rolling average of reported COVID-19 cases per week per 100,000 residents — reveals how the virus reached every corner of the province in waves.
A year ago today, the threat of COVID-19 in Ontario still seemed hypothetical.
“This is changing hour by hour, day by day,” Premier Doug Ford said declaring Ontario’s first state of emergency at a March 17, 2020, news conference, hours after the province reported its first fatal case — a 77-year-old Barrie man who tested positive after his death in hospital.
Even as the Premier declared the pandemic an emergency, the worst of it was still happening overseas, wreaking havoc in places like northern Italy, where hospitals were overwhelmed and thousands were dying.
In the 365 days that followed, the pandemic has reached every corner of this province in waves.
And, on each one of those days, the Star has been there to track and analyze the situation, compiling a day-byday record of the virus’s local impact.
This image — every day of the COVID-19 pandemic in all 34 of Ontario’s local public health units, based on the Star’s data — reveals a pandemic that can’t be summed up as one provincewide event.
Here’s what it reveals:
HOW LITTLE WE KNEW IN THE EARLY MONTHS
Any picture of COVID-19 infections across the whole pandemic is sure to understate just how bad that first spring was in Ontario’s hardest-hit communities.
In March, April and May 2020, far fewer people were tested than in later months — officials avoided testing patients who were ill, but well enough to stay home. The result, experts estimate, is that many, many more Wave 1 cases were missed than were caught.
Those testing issues were largely solved by last summer. That’s why the early months appear almost mild compared with a brutal second wave. The pandemic was worse in the fall and winter, but not as severely as it appears.
THE PANDEMIC WAS LOCAL
The first wave had largely subsided in the GTA by June, but that’s when infections began to spike in the southwest. That’s the reason Windsor-Essex, hit by large agricultural outbreaks, was last to enter Stage 3 of reopening.
Wave 2 began earliest in Ottawa in August, but the region’s dark red colours gave way through November and earlyDecember. That’s when most of the rest of the province saw the start of the frightening rise in infections that led Ford to announce a provincewide stay-athome order on Jan. 12.
And although the worst of last spring largely spared the north, a year later, Thunder Bay now has this province’s highest infection rate.
THIS ISN’T THE FULL PICTURE
No single image can capture the local context in every Ontario community.
A dark-red blip in one region might be a series of deadly longterm-care outbreaks, in another it’s a spike in less severe school-age infections.
In a city like Toronto, that local trend could itself be subdivided to reveal the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on lower-income and racialized communities.
These differences matter, and although one image can reveal a lot about the year since Ontario’s first state of emergency, it can’t cover all these factors.
A VIRUS THAT THRIVES WHEN YOU RELAX
Ontario has twice imposed a hard lockdown and twice moved to open back up.
After Wave 1, cases ultimately stopped falling and started rising again in early August, soon after Toronto and Peel entered Stage 3 of reopening. Likewise, The lowest point after Wave 2 came in mid-February, soon after the stay-at-home order started to be lifted across the province.
Even as Ontario can look forward to the likely end of the pandemic, it’s facing another threat.
In the weeks ahead, Ontario’s scientific advisers warn B.1.1.7. and other variants of concern could cause a third deadly wave.
If that happens, it will surely play out locally.